


Finders Keepers

by provocative_envy



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Humor, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Reckless Obliviousness, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-08 12:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19869760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: In Theon’s defense, it only takes him two and a half weeks to figure out that the girl he’s been sending dick pics to is Sansa Stark.





	Finders Keepers

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i didn't think it was necessary to tag for it because it's so brief but there's a non-explicit reference to the aftermath of past domestic violence towards the end of the fic - if you feel like it SHOULD be tagged, just let me know and i'll take care of it
> 
> 2\. i still don't really go here but i'm willing to concede that i might occasionally return for short or medium-length visits 
> 
> 3\. comments/kudos appreciated, please enjoy!!!!
> 
> xoxo

* * *

In Theon’s defense, it only takes him two and a half weeks to figure out that the girl he’s been sending dick pics to is Sansa Stark.

The evidence, in hindsight, is somewhat staggering—“Jeyne” texts like she thinks her high school English teacher might be watching, full words, complete sentences, all-star punctuation and grammar and spelling and _heart emojis_ , Jesus fuck, so many _fucking_ heart emojis—and “Jeyne” has creamy skin and perfect tits and mile-long legs and freckles on her knees and is always posing, the lines and curves and angles of her body arranged with such artful, immaculate _precision,_ like she’s shooting some really upscale high-budget softcore porn in her bedroom—in her painfully _familiar_ bedroom, which, in bits and pieces, has been hovering in the background, behind and around “Jeyne,” all a-fucking-long; the baby pink walls and the lightbulb-framed vanity mirror and the eyelet lace throw pillows and the flowers, too, the cut-crystal vase of tulips sitting on the elegant white escritoire, the mason jars full of rose petals and lavender sprigs lined up on the far edge of the matching scroll-topped dresser.

Theon helped paint that bedroom.

Theon slept off several not-so-secret hangovers in that bedroom.

Theon carved his fucking _initials_ into one of the windowsills in that bedroom.

Even more importantly, though, “Jeyne” has never sent him a selfie that included even a vague hint of a suggestion of her own face, and while he had pretty reasonably assumed that was because she was a ten from the neck down and a self-aware five everywhere else, it actually—

Well.

That would still actually make a lot more sense than “Jeyne” being Sansa Stark.

Because Theon _knows_ Sansa Stark—knows that she can’t get through a thirty-second _diaper_ commercial without crying, knows that her real smile is just ever so slightly, every so slyly crooked, knows that her favorite color is seafoam green and that she hates the smell of clove cigarettes because they remind her of her douchebag prom date and that when she’s anxious or upset or angry or _sad_ she bakes whole sheet trays of lemon bars and doesn’t offer to share them with anyone.

He also sure as shit knows that on her eighteenth birthday, she asked him for a ride to a tattoo parlor.

And that she paid in cash so her parents wouldn’t find out and that when the gun started to whir she held his hand tight enough for his knuckles to creak and that she looked oddly, uncharacteristically fragile when the artist held up a mirror afterwards to show her the howling, black-and-gray wolf he’d inked into the hollow of her hip.

Theon would recognize that wolf anywhere, but especially like this.

Up close.

High-res.

No flash.

Barely peeking out from the crisscrossed satin straps of a pair of low-cut, expensive-looking blue panties.

* * *

Christ, he is so _fucking_ stupid.

* * *

**jack, 24 **

_ 7 miles away _

> milkshake addict, nsfw, still kind of want to be a pirate when i grow up. bigger than i look. 

* * *

Theon’s worked hard, over the years, to be less of a piece of shit than he could be.

Used to be.

 _Should_ be, arguably, because he has vivid technicolor memories of the nature versus nurture chapter in his biology textbook and his instantaneous knee-jerk comparison of his dad and Robb’s dad and how Robb’s dad took them camping and hunting and volunteered to coach their pee-wee football teams and always did that heavy, solid, gruffly supportive hand-clap on the shoulder thing that was as much of a gut-punch to Theon as it was anything else since _Theon’s_ dad—

Theon’s dad didn’t do shit like that.

Theon’s dad taught him how to start a fight and scale a fish and pour whiskey into his coffee at fuck o’clock in the morning. Theon’s dad called him “pretty boy” with the same degree of venom he typically reserved for vegans and Mormons. Theon’s dad had the “& Son” scrubbed off the delivery truck, and the lobster tanks, and the salt-studded wooden crates they kept stacked on the decks of their boats, all before Theon even finished high school.

* * *

Theon was a Greyjoy, technically, but it never felt like it fucking counted.

* * *

The “Jeyne” epiphany comes at an unfortunate time for Theon.

It’s after midnight, and he’s already _at_ the Starks’ weirdo murder mystery stronghold in the mountains for the weekend—and Robb is holed up in the game room video-calling whoever his forever girl of the month happens to be and Arya is backpacking through southeast Asia with her hulking lovestruck not-boyfriend and Bran is inexplicably re-watching _The Shining_ in the basement for the fourth time in as many days and Jon had disappeared after dinner to go get high and soulfully brood on the back deck with his telescope and his man-bun and his emo fucking dream journal, so Theon—

Theon is alone.

His plan for the evening had obviously been to jerk off, but he’d wanted to be indulgent about it. Wanted to take his time. Drag it out. Work himself up into a kind of desperate, frothing _need_.

That’s why he thought of “Jeyne” in the first place.

There was something about the prim, prissy way she texted—the unfailingly polite formality of how she phrased all the filthy, dirty-hot shit she sent to him—that he found funny. Endearing.

 _Interesting_.

Which makes sense, of course, because “Jeyne” is Sansa, and Sansa is “Jeyne,” and Theon is fucked.

He knows what Sansa looks like naked now—just like he knows that she loves to drizzle chocolate syrup on her pancakes and her cereal and her peanut butter toast, and that she organizes her lipsticks not by color but by how offended her mother would be if she were to wear them to church, and that the real reason she quit cheerleading was because she refused to sign the petition to ban Arya from playing on the boys’ hockey team.

It’s dizzying, how much Theon knows about Sansa.

How he’s collected all these details, catalogued them, hoarded them, privately and haphazardly and painstakingly, too, like the fucking—like the Little Mermaid with her underwater cavern full of forks, like one of those greedy little birds that sneaks into people’s houses through the open windows and steals loose change and forgotten paperclips and priceless heirloom jewelry just to decorate its dumb ratty nest out in the woods.

* * *

Sansa is a Stark.

Starks are, by definition, bright and kind and loyal and fair and generous and well-adjusted and _good_.

Sansa is good.

Sansa is so, so good.

* * *

Theon is squinting suspiciously at a package of Oreos when the back-door creaks open and Sansa stumbles inside.

Her cheeks are flushed, her hair tangled and windswept, one of the cap sleeves of her yellow gingham sundress drooping a little, slipping down her shoulder, exposing the delicate wing of her collarbone and the pink-tinged glow of a fresh tan-line. She’s holding a pair of strappy white sandals in one hand, her bedazzled turquoise iPhone in the other, and there’s sand on her feet, crusting her pedicure.

“Theon!” she exclaims, beaming at him like he’s just singlehandedly rescued a litter of puppies from a house fire. “You’re here!”

And—

Oh.

Oh, _no._

This is, Theon thinks with slowly dawning hysteria, a _dilemma_.

A moral dilemma.

A moral _conundrum_ , even, because Sansa is Robb’s baby sister.

Sansa is sweet and soft and sensitive and sheltered and deserves to be _treasured_. Cherished. Worshipped. For fuck’s sake, she wore a _purity ring_ on a thin silver chain around her neck until she was sixteen, and she only _stopped_ wearing it because she _lost it_ at the beach. At Theon’s beach, the one he’d grown up next to and on top of and entrenched in, which—there’s a truly special, truly hellacious kind of irony in that, which he’s literally never going to examine any further than he has to.

He should tell her.

He’s _going_ to tell her.

Deleting his profile and his text thread with “Jeyne” and all the pictures she’d sent him—he already _did_ that, a winding tendril of dread, of guilt, knotting itself tighter and tighter in the pit of his stomach, heavy like an anchor—but he couldn’t pretend none of it had fucking happened. He couldn’t ignore this brand-new, utterly intoxicating facet of Sansa that he’d been inadvertently granted access to— _anonymously_ granted access to, because there’s a less than zero chance “Jeyne” would’ve ever swiped right on a guy named _Theon_.

“I’ve _missed_ you, why haven’t I seen you around lately?” Sansa is saying, chirping, flinging her sandals onto the hardwood floor. “Where have you been?”

“Working,” Theon grunts. “It’s, uh—a busy time of year. People like to buy boats in the summer, you know?”

“Right,” she says, nodding sagely. Solemnly. Hilariously. Christ, is she drunk? “And people who buy boats need to buy boat _insurance_.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pressing his lips together to stave off a grin. “They do.”

“And that’s where _you_ come in.” She pauses, tapping her chin with her index finger, slightly off-center, and then sighs, her gaze darting from his face to his chest to the beveled marble edge of the counter he’s standing behind. “Theon, why aren’t you wearing clothes?”

He stares at her, mouth working soundlessly. “I . . . am? Wearing clothes?”

“Well, yeah, but not a _shirt_.”

“Is that—” He shakes his head, smirking, bemused and helpless. “Is that a problem for you, princess? A distraction, maybe?”

Her smile twitches wider, curving farther up on one side than the other. “No, no, it’s _fine,_ ” she says, flapping her wrist, charm bracelet tinkling, and leaning—drifting—swaying, really—into the kitchen island. She sighs again, more mournfully. “You never wear shirts, do you?”

Theon’s grip on the Oreos reflexively slackens, crinkling the packaging, but before he can respond—no, before he can _confess_ , because he’s definitely going to do that, any minute now, he _is_ —she’s glancing down, her clear, crisp, minty green eyes going big and round with delight.

“Here,” he blurts out, shoving the Oreos at her and quickly spinning around, yanking open the refrigerator door just to have something to do with his hands. His own eyes water as he forces himself not to blink. Catelyn Stark buys so much fucking almond milk, Jesus _fuck_. “You, uh—did you have a good night?”

Behind him, Sansa is chewing loudly, noisily, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings, which is so tremendously out of character that Theon almost gives in to the strange, bubbling impulse he has to slam his head against the nearest flat surface.

Repeatedly.

Relentlessly.

With beleaguered, long-suffering _resignation._

“Yeah, it was okay,” Sansa says blithely, and then _groans,_ long and low and breathless, adding, “I swear, this is the best thing I have _ever_ put in my mouth.”

Theon chokes out a laugh that’s more strangled than coherent.

He wonders, in a daze, what the _fuck_ he ever did to deserve this.

* * *

A lot, is probably the answer.

* * *

** jeyne, 21 **

_ less than 1 mile away _

> “Give a girl the right pair of shoes and she’ll conquer the world.”
> 
> -Marilyn Monroe

* * *

Sansa used to pride herself on being _nice_ , Theon remembers.

She was gentle. Placid. Effortlessly feminine, whatever the fuck that meant, and almost unbelievably eager to please. She liked being liked. Liked the attention, the grateful smiles and the admiring stares, and the social perks inherent to her specific brand of popularity.

Extravagant parties.

Attractive, polished, obnoxious friends.

Casual superiority.

A golden-haired, snaggle-toothed, abominable shithead of a boyfriend who drove a midlife-crisis red Porsche and treated her about as well as he did his third-favorite pair of ugly Italian-leather loafers.

Sansa paid very close attention to people’s _exteriors_ , but rarely bothered to dig any deeper than that.

* * *

Theon preferred it that way, honestly.

* * *

Sansa is out by the pool in the backyard when he shows up.

He’d timed it perfectly—deliberately—with Robb out on a frozen yogurt date with what’s-her-face and Jon in the city with Bran for some kind of insane and disturbingly earnest ghost hunting tour and everyone else at work. It’s early afternoon. The sun is shining, and the sky is clear, and the air smells like salt and honeysuckle and the artificial coconut of Sansa’s tanning oil.

She’s lying on a blue-and-white striped lounge chair, her thick, glossy red hair pushed back with a pair of oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses, wearing a skimpy black bikini. Strapless top. Dangerously tiny, loosely tied bottoms. There’s a book on the cast-iron table next to her, an honest-to-god paperback, and a half-empty bottle of water. Chapstick. Headphones. A discarded snack-sized bag of Pirate’s Booty.

She hasn’t noticed Theon yet.

He’s lurking by the sliding glass door, free hand tucked into his back pocket, drinking in the sight of her—the sight of her uncomfortably familiar body. It’s different like this, obviously, nothing performative or calculated about how she’s stretched out, posture relaxed, skin streaked with sunscreen, but it’s almost better, he thinks, because she’s always been beautiful, the kind of beautiful that’s inherently untouchable, inherently unreachable, and this—this is for her.

Not Theon.

Not whoever she thought Theon _was_.

He winces at the reminder of what he’s there to actually do—which is _confess_ , desperately and pathetically, like a goddamn _criminal_ —and squares his shoulders, puffing his cheeks out on a messy, entirely too uncertain exhale. His palms are sweaty. His pulse is racing.

This is ridiculous.

 _He_ is ridiculous.

He’s an adult. A grown-ass man with a boring office job and a bitchin’ houseboat and a crippling, widely varied assortment of abandonment _and_ commitment issues. He can do this. He _will_ do this. If not for his own peace of mind, then Sansa’s.

Sansa, who he now knows likes to be held down but not tied up during sex, and whose most scandalous fantasy involves her old prep school uniform skirt and a disappointed authority figure and not a whole lot else.

“Theon!” she calls out, finally looking over at him. Her smile is effervescent, fucking blinding, and that’s what he blames for tripping over one of Catelyn’s gardening gloves and having to windmill his arms to avoid falling. He pretends he can’t hear Sansa’s muffled giggling. “What are you doing here?”

Theon had mostly forgotten about the 7-Eleven bag looped around his fingers, but as he drops down onto the end of her chair, jostling her feet, he waves it at her, hastily producing two still-cold bottles of pink lemonade.

“Just thought I’d stop by,” he says, awkwardly spreading his legs and scratching at the back of his neck. “See if you wanted to catch up. It’s been a while, eh?”

She cocks her head. “Is everything alright?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” He cracks his knuckles, guilt and nerves and something undeniably, immeasurably worse beginning to gnaw at his insides. “How’s, uh, how’s school?”

“It’s _July_.”

“I meant—like, _generally_ ,” he tries, with a reluctant chuckle. “How’s—what is it— _medieval literature?_ Yeah?”

She sits up, then, drawing her knees to her chest and fiddling with the label on her lemonade. The condensation is dripping onto her thighs. “It’s fine,” she says, quirking her lips. Shrugging. “Less . . . _romantic_ than I was expecting, you know, but I think I might like that? Actually?”

Christ.

Christ, he should really just fucking—just _tell_ her.

It’s the appropriate thing to do, the right thing to do, and while he’s aware, intellectually, that he hasn’t really done anything wrong— _isn’t_ really doing anything wrong, currently—it feels dishonest, to sit here and let her look at him like that. Like he isn’t “Jack” and like she isn’t “Jeyne” and like this whole clusterfuck isn’t some big cosmic _joke_ because anonymous sexting on a sleazy hookup app truly is the closest Theon Greyjoy is ever going to get to a girl like Sansa Stark.

She’ll laugh, probably.

Disbelieving.

Astonished.

Maybe a little embarrassed, too, but they’ve been circling the distant outer edges of each other’s lives for so long that a few weeks of mistaken identity rom-com bullshit isn’t going to irreparably damage their friendship. Almost-friendship. Not quite-friendship.

So, he opens his mouth.

He takes a mortifyingly shallow breath.

And he isn’t sure what he’s going to say—he hasn’t thought that far ahead, never thinks that far ahead—but the words, whatever they might have eventually been, die a swift, merciless death on the tip of his tongue because—

“We should do something after this,” Sansa says, like it’s a foregone conclusion he’s going to stay here, with her, if she wants him to. “Mini golfing or bowling or—oh, they’re doing, like, a James Bond marathon at the park later, we could bring a picnic. Some wine? Beer?” She bites her lip and kicks at his hip with her ankle. “Rum.”

“Ah, I see.” Theon catches her by the ankle, thumb roving restlessly over the bone there. Her skin is sun-warm, sun-soft, and he’s hyper-aware of how callused and rough the pads of his fingers are. “You’re gonna start calling me Jack Sparrow again, aren’t you?”

“You liked that!”

He snorts. “No, _you_ liked it, you thought it was _so_ funny, you didn’t let it go for—”

“You dressed up as him for Halloween. _Twice_.”

“Fuck yeah, I did,” Theon says, releasing her ankle to hold his hand up for a high-five. Her shoulders begin to shake with what he smugly guesses is very badly suppressed laughter. “It’s basically my dream job.”

“What is?”

He leans forward, cracking open the seal on his own lemonade, and then shoots her a teasing wink, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “ _Pirate_.”

Sansa’s expression flickers, then, a faint furrow appearing in her brow, but she almost immediately blinks it away. She doesn’t have any makeup on, and her eyelashes are two-toned, burnished brown and golden blonde, long enough that they cast shadows on the curve of her cheek when she tilts her head back.

“So . . . we’re going?” she asks, and she’s curling her toes into the cushion of her seat, like she’s nervous. Which is—crazy. _Theon_ is crazy. “Tonight, I mean?”

“Yeah, sure,” he answers automatically. “Whatever you want.”

* * *

He really is so fucking stupid.

* * *

Theon doesn’t date.

His aversion to it isn’t a quirk so much as it is a self-fulfilling prophecy—dating is about talking and connecting and opening up and trusting the idea of potential whether it’s temporary or not and he’s never particularly seen the point to any of it.

Sex can be separate.

Sex _is_ separate.

In high school, Theon watched Robb fall in love with falling in love, watched him pine and sulk and mope and take guitar lessons so he could write shitty cliched songs about his flavor of the week or month or after-school detention period, and he watched Jon’s overnight transformation from sullen World of Warcraft mouth-breather to born-again consumptive Victorian poet who repeatedly, obliviously, outkicked his coverage with girls who were smart enough to fucking _know_ better yet somehow _never did_ , and he watched himself, too, in his bathroom mirror when he shaved every second or third day just to clean up the scruff and in his rearview mirror when he backed his truck into his unmarked parking spot at the docks and in the gleaming professionally-cleaned windows of the Stark house when he and Robb had to mow the lawn after breaking curfew and in the much smaller, much grimier windows of his dad’s house when he had to pick up the rest of his shit after finally being kicked out and in the wobbly sheen of unshed tears in Sansa’s makeup-cloudy eyes on prom night, on _her_ prom night, because Theon should’ve never fucking been there, should’ve never seen her like—

Theon didn’t want to be Robb.

Theon didn’t want to be Jon.

* * *

Theon didn’t want to be _Theon_ , sometimes, most of the time, which was kind of a fucking bummer.

* * *

“Sun-dried tomato or blueberry?” Sansa asks, holding up two flimsy plastic containers of cream cheese. “Or— _oh_ , there’s jalapeno, and olive, and—maple syrup? With walnuts?”

Theon frowns. “Can’t we just get the plain kind?”

“That’s _so_ boring.”

“Boring isn’t _bad_ , though,” he argues, reaching around her to grab his own container out of the refrigerated display case. The floor in this place is checkered black-and-white tile, scuffed and grainy, and it reminds him of the diners his dad always took him to for breakfast when he was a kid. Buttermilk pancakes and chocolate milk and those little fruit cups with the canned pineapple and the soggy pears and the singular purple grapes. “Like, there aren’t any surprises, you know?”

Sansa hums, noncommittal. “You used to love surprises.”

Theon glances at her, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth—she’s wearing cut-offs and flip-flops and the ancient, questionably clean t-shirt he’d scrounged up from the backseat of his truck. Her hair is wet. Her lips are chapped. She smells like the ocean, like the sunrise, like saltwater taffy and broken bits of seashell and the least traumatizing parts of _home_ and—

He still hasn’t told her.

It’s been a week—Christ, he’s seen her _every day_ for a _week_ —and he still hasn’t mustered up the resolve, no, the _courage_ to fucking tell her.

“Surprises are fine,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Just not in food.”

She shakes her head, heaving an exaggerated, exasperated sigh, and plucks another container out of the case. “What about strawberry? Is that generic enough for you?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Pass.”

“Really?”

“It’s my dad’s favorite,” Theon says, turning his attention to the quaint wicker baskets full of fresh bagels that are lining the exposed brick wall. Onion. Cinnamon-raisin. Whole wheat. “And it’s usually a really bad sign when he likes things.”

Sansa holds onto the container, tapping her thumbnail against the rim. “So . . . you’ve never even tried it?”

“Nah.”

“Do you want to?”

Theon glances at her _again_. “If you want to get it, get it.”

She doesn’t reply to that, not verbally, at least, but she does put the strawberry cream cheese back. There’s an odd expression on her face—pensive, frustrated—that makes him feel abruptly, overwhelmingly guilty, awkward and cumbersome and off-balance, like he doesn’t belong here, like he’s getting away with something, just by daring to stand near her. Next to her.

“You’ve never,” she starts, and then stops, peeking up at him through her lashes. “I’ve never heard you talk about your family before.”

He averts his gaze. “Seriously?”

“I mean, I know you aren’t _close_ , and I know you moved out really young, and I know there’s probably a reason you don’t work for your dad like you were supposed to,” she continues, red-cheeked and fast, “but I’ve never—you’ve never mentioned it. To me. Around me.”

Theon fidgets with the worn leather edges of his wallet, wondering how that’s even possible—he’s known Sansa since he was ten years old, since his dad forgot to pick him up from baseball practice again and Robb’s dad decided to pretend for Theon’s sake that going to Baskin Robbins on the drive home had been the plan all along and Sansa had smoothed down the pleats of her Girl Scout skirt and looked on in abject _horror_ as him and Robb had gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles and cookie dough and butterscotch piled on top of their ice cream.

“I don’t really know what to say to that,” Theon admits, scrubbing at his jaw, gaze pinned to the guy at the front of the line, who’s taking for fucking _ever_ to swipe his credit card. “I guess—yeah. I don’t know.”

Sansa lets out a little breath, barely audible, before stepping closer and wrapping her fingers around his wrist and squeezing, just the once, like he doesn’t _have_ to say anything to that, not if he doesn’t want to, and it’s—Christ, it’s exactly the kind of thing he expects from her, gentle understanding and quiet sympathy and unassuming, no-strings-attached kindness, exactly the kind of thing he would’ve never expected from “Jeyne” because “Jeyne” was a stranger, was less of a person than she was an exceptionally unrealistic, exceptionally well-groomed projection of his sex drive’s most basic requirements, but Sansa—

Sansa is “Jeyne”.

“Jeyne” is Sansa.

And that’s almost certainly what has him so bothered by all of this, why he can’t seem to get his shit together and just _tell her_ who he actually is, who he’s actually been to her—the fact that he’s always been so careful to keep Sansa at arms-length, as far away as he could get her, on the highest, sturdiest, most difficult to reach pedestal—and it hadn’t _mattered_.

Because Sansa is “Jeyne” and “Jeyne” is Sansa and Theon is still fucked.

So, he forces out a low-pitched, rumbling laugh, coughing into his fist, impulsively slinging an arm around her shoulder, her neck, and pressing a short, terrifyingly affectionate kiss onto the crown of her head. Her hair tickles his chin, damp and wavy and stiff with salt, and she relaxes into his side, into his chest, for just a few seconds too long for it to be thoughtless or casual or easy.

* * *

It _is_ easy.

* * *

Years and years and years ago, he drew a line between what he wanted—out of life, from himself, in hypothetical relationships—and what he could reasonably hope to actually get, and he drew it in permanent ink.

Sharpie-fuzzy, ruler-straight.

He didn’t have a contingency plan for when that ink inevitably began to fade, as time passed and his priorities shifted and he never quite hit his second growth spurt, but he remembers being at the mall with Robb in junior high, remembers Robb checking his phone and rolling his eyes and slurping at his ICEE until his tongue turned blue before he sauntered into one of those sparkly, brightly-decorated stores for preteen girls to pick out a giant polka-dotted pencil for Sansa.

 _“Everyone has one but me,_ ” Robb had mimicked, high-pitched and whiny, and Theon had laughed, inspecting a rack of One Direction notebooks with thinly-veiled discomfort. _“Don’t make me ask Theon.”_

The pencil’s attached eraser had been a chalky pastel pink, trapezoid-shaped and shrink-wrapped, with a lopsided purple sticker banded across the middle.

 _Long-lasting_ , it had read.

_Heavy-duty._

* * *

They’re curled up on the corduroy sectional together, a muted _Top Chef_ re-run playing on the flat-screen mounted to the wood-paneled wall, next to the framed jerseys and posters and concert tickets and decades’ worth of commemorative sports team photos.

Sansa keeps fucking _looking_ at him.

Theon keeps fucking _catching_ her.

She’s sitting too close for it to be innocent, her knee brushing his thigh, her hand grazing his arm, and while a large part of him point-blank refuses to believe this is even happening—he doesn’t get _lucky_ , not like this—a much smaller, more timid, less trustworthy part of him is tense with anticipation. Exhilaration. Dread, too, because he’s going to do it.

He’s going to tell her.

Except—

No, no, he is _not_ going to tell her, because she’s turning towards him and swinging her legs around and arching forward and fucking _kissing_ him.

And for a brief, blissful, brilliant moment, he gives in.

He moves his lips, opens his mouth, brings his hand up to thread his fingers through her hair, cup her jaw, tilt her head—and she tastes like sparkling lemon water and bubblegum and something else, too, something tart and warm and vast and enchanting that he already knows he’s never going to forget because the _sounds_ she’s making, Christ, the way she’s grinding down and gripping the front of his shirt and leaning down, into him, carving out a space for herself that he isn’t totally sure even existed until now, until _her_ —

Her tongue curls against his, slick and soft, and he jerks backwards.

“Wait,” he gasps, chest heaving, staring up at her—she’s got at least half an inch on him even when she isn’t sitting in his lap, but she _is_ sitting in his lap, her knees bracketing his hips, and they both might technically be fully fucking clothed but there’s just _not_ enough _room_ for him to _think_.

There’s—friction.

Heat.

Her eyes are wide, that fairy princess shade of green partially eclipsed by dilated pupils and a deeply flattering, fascinatingly predatory kind of focus.

“Wait,” he says again, more faintly, and he can’t help but drag his thumb along her cheekbone, tracing the shape, memorizing the curve. Her skin is silk. Satin. Better than any of the lingerie he’s seen her in. “I have to—Sansa. I need to tell you . . .”

“What?” she asks, her breath hitching when his other hand tightens around her waist. “Tell me what?”

“I’m Jack,” he blurts out, and he’s a little proud of how steadily he holds her gaze. “I’m—you’re Jeyne, and I’m Jack, and I deleted—fuck, I deleted everything as soon as I realized, I swear, I didn’t _know_ , not until I saw the tattoo, and I wasn’t—I wanted to tell you, I did, I just didn’t know . . . how? You know? Are you—shit, what’s that look? Are you mad?”

She’s gone completely still, unnaturally still, her expression eerily blank and her mind almost visibly racing. “Oh,” she murmurs, and he wants to reach up and smooth out the new crease in her forehead, the frown that _he_ put there, that his bullshit put there, but it vanishes on its own. “ _Oh_.”

“Oh?”

“That . . . makes sense, actually.”

He peers at her intently, heart hammering against his ribs. “Yeah?”

There’s a distinctly pink flush creeping across her face, but he doesn’t have a clue what it means. “Well,” she says, dragging _her_ thumb around the divot between his collarbones, where his t-shirt dips, “at least we know we’re compatible.”

Theon is barking out a laugh before he fully processes what she’s said, desperately, giddily, wildly fucking relieved and supremely indifferent to how transparent he’s being about it because he has _agonized_ over this, for ten goddamn fucking _miserable_ days, and he’s fucking _free._ Free of the crushing, nauseating weight of all the guilt and indecision and self-loathing and bitterness that he’s pretty sure he’s just genetically predisposed to, Christ, and if that isn’t a fucking _achievement,_ a fucking _victory—_ well, the way she’s reacting would be on its own, her quietly sly giggle merging inexorably with the smile she flashes him, fond and pleased and crooked and—

“There’s something else,” he says, and he’s less anxious about this specific confession, especially now, but he still bounces his knee a little, jostling her.

“Okay?”

“I’m—I’m in love with you,” he says, puffing his cheeks out and nodding sternly to himself. “I have been for . . . a long time.”

She doesn’t look surprised, at all, which is—fine.

Good, probably.

Maybe.

“How long?” she asks, with an idle kind of curiosity that he frantically wishes he knew how to interpret. “Weeks? Months? _Years?_ ”

He grimaces. “Please don’t make me answer that.”

Her lips twitch. “Theon.”

“Sansa?”

Her smile gradually fades, her mouth taking on a more serious slant, jarring and helpless and unexpected, like a car shifting gears. “Do you remember my prom night?”

His eyebrows fly up. “How the _fuck_ would I have forgotten that?”

“I was _upset_ ,” she says delicately, mostly ignoring him, obviously wanting to avoid using any more descriptive terminology. “And I called you.”

“Yeah. I know. What—”

“To come and pick me up.”

“Yeah,” Theon repeats, and he doesn’t _like_ this memory. Doesn’t like reliving it. “Since Robb was sleeping, and Jon was at—what was it—a fucking _mead brewing_ conference, and—”

“No,” Sansa interrupts, and her lips are twitching again, but more gently, more privately, like she knows something Theon doesn’t. “No, Theon, I called _you_.”

He squints at her, uncomprehending. “I don’t—what?”

“Robb and Jon—they’re my family, and I love them both very much, but that night—” She breaks off, teeth clamping down on the inside of her mouth, and a shadow passes over her face—just a whisper, just a ghosting, barely-there glimmer of the girl she was at seventeen, the girl whose sleek designer dress was splattered with vodka and cranberry juice and ripped right down the front and whose cheeks were stained with tears and snot and mascara and lipstick and blood from her nose, from the vicious violet bruise blossoming around her eye. “I was upset, and I was scared, and I thought really, really hard about who I wanted to see most—about who I thought could _possibly_ make me feel—not _better_ , but less . . . less _awful_ about myself. And I thought of you.”

Theon blinks rapidly, his chest constricting, and he has to really _work_ to get his next words out. “I—what?” he croaks. “ _Why?_ ”

Sansa shakes her head, wistful. “I didn’t expect it either, to be fair. You, I mean.” She hesitates. “I didn’t expect it to be _you._ ”

“Well, yeah,” he says thickly, still blinking, still breathless. “No shit.”

She smiles at him, patient and considering and tender and _fierce_ , and draws her hand up to his jaw, skimming her fingertips over a patchy layer of stubble. “You weren’t just my first choice,” she says, not like she’s telling him a secret, not exactly, but like she’s explaining an exceptionally simple solution to what he’d erroneously assumed was an exceptionally complicated problem. “You were my _best_ choice.”

And Theon tries to swallow, he does, but his throat is dry and his tonsils are fused together and his tongue is scraping at the roof of his mouth like fucking _sandpaper_ and he just—doesn’t quite manage it.

“You saw me at my worst,” Sansa goes on, and this time, there’s gravity to it. Conviction. This _is_ a secret. “You’ve _known me_ at my worst. I don’t think—” She cuts herself off with a laugh, dropping her chin and lowering her voice and pressing herself just that tiniest bit closer. She’s fucking _luminous_ , even in the dim, shitty basement lighting. “I don’t think it was ever going to be anyone _but_ you.”

* * *

He lets her kiss him, then.

She lets him kiss her back.

* * *

Jon talks about parallel dimensions and time travel and multiverses and galaxy brain nerd shit a lot.

Jon’s annoying.

But Theon thinks, occasionally, about how there must be a version of him—a version of Theon Greyjoy—who doesn’t get to have what he has. A version of him who didn’t give up on living down to his dad’s expectations so quickly, a version of him who really put _effort_ into cultivating his own worst qualities, who turned left instead of right at a crossroads Theon can’t pinpoint, even now.

A certified piece of shit.

And maybe it was the Starks who saved him from that—maybe it was all that camping and hunting and supportive shoulder-clapping—

But maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe he saved himself.

* * *

** hungry like the ____ **

_ 6 members _

**kingrobb** : are you sleeping with sansa????????

 **kraken69** : i am DATING sansa

 **kingrobb** : answer the fucking question greyjoy

 **kraken69** : no

 **kingrobb** : no you ARENT sleeping with sansa????????

 **kraken69** : why do u even want to know

 **kraken69** : that is super weird man she’s ur sister

 **the_watchman** : hella weird

 **kraken69** : even your lame goth cousin thinks it’s weird

 **the_watchman** : oh go fuck yourself

 **kraken69** : no

 **kingrobb** : DO NOT SAY IT

 **wheelsnipecelly** : _[has attached a picture]_

 **wheelsnipecelly** : gendry jumped off a cliff in borneo with me lmao

 **kingrobb** : THEON IS SLEEPING WITH SANSA

 **wheelsnipecelly** : gross

 **the_watchman** : extremely

 **doth_quoth** : why tf are you talking about this

 **doth_quoth** : what is wrong with you

 **kingrobb** : _[has left the chat]_

 **sansastark** : 💕💞💗💓💝💟

 **kraken69** : 💖💖💖

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)


End file.
